Category: The Spiritual Side Of Sexuality

I had a strange experience recently that I thought might be an answer to one of the prayers I put out to God a good while ago, but in the end only reminded me of something I choose to call “The Christian Box”.

The experience I’m speaking of began one afternoon when I was sitting at a coffee shop talking to someone who was considering me to be their sponsor in recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. Suddenly, in the middle of my conversation with them, a thirty-something guy approached and said he was sorry for overhearing our discussion surrounding God, but that it sounded like something he wanted to hear more about. He then handed me his number and said if I felt comfortable, to give him a call sometime and maybe we could talk a little more about my spiritual journey.

I was immediately pumped when this happened because I had been praying for some time about God bringing new friendships into my life that would be open to talking about the many multifaceted ways I believe God is present on this planet. Unfortunately, most of the people I currently know haven’t been that interested in discussing things like this, hence the reason for this long-standing prayer.

So, when I actually made the phone call later that day to this individual, I talked for a few minutes and made plans to meet up with them for an afternoon meal about a week later. When the day arrived for that meal, I must say I was somewhat excited about the possibility of finally having someone in my life locally who loved exploring spirituality as much as I do. But I’m sad to say that an hour later, things turned out quite differently.

Initially as we began eating, he talked happily about his wife while I did the same with my partner. Everything seemed to go topsy-turvy after that though. He told me he was a Christian and felt the Bible was 100% the truth of God and began asking me questions that ultimately felt like I was being put on the defensive. In all honesty, it reminded me quite a bit of the many conversations I’ve had in the past with other Christians, who were never able to see outside The Christian Box, as I call it.

Why I call it this is for the mere reality that so many Christians feel the only truth is what’s in the Bible. And if it’s not in the Bible, then it’s not the truth. As for me these days, God never has and never will live in a box, which is precisely what I told him. I also told him I believe that God created me and my sexuality, and that it wasn’t a mistake nor a sin. I followed that in saying I felt the path to God can come through many other ways as well, from other religions to other forms of spiritual practice.

Needless to say, none of that went over so well.

But I’ve learned over the years not to get into debates with someone who appears to be a very strongly-opinionated Christian, because it never turns out well. So instead, I just listened. I listened to what he had to say about the church he attends weekly, about his belief that the only way to God is through Christ and that any other will only lead to destruction. I even listened with an open heart when he asked if I ever prayed to God to take the gay away, although he didn’t quite put it in those terms.

Regardless, I remained a good sport throughout the entire time I spent with this guy, because I truly feel that God is in every single human being on this planet. In other words, I looked at him as an extensive of God like I do with everyone else nowadays, even when their viewpoints may be completely different from mine. It was somewhat sad though to observe a person who said they were hungry and exploring a deeper relationship with God go from that to talking about the same things I always seem to talk about when I speak with extremely devout Christians.

Look, I’m a Christian, but I also consider myself a Buddhist, a Spiritualist, a lover of nature, and so much more. I see God in far more today than just what the Bible speaks to. And as many know with me, I don’t feel the Bible is 100% accurate. It was written over 2000 years ago and been interpreted over and over again to make the versions we see today. None of us lived back in Jesus’s time, thus I take the Bible today as part of my spiritual guidance in life, just not the sole truth.

The sole truth is something that’s ever-expanding with me, one that has led me to believe there are multiple lives each of our souls live, one that has involved me exploring the truths in things such as numerology and tarot for example, and one that has shown me there are infinite paths to God, with Christ being just one of them.

While I may proclaim Christ as my Lord and Savior, I cannot and will not ever put that on someone else, because I’m not God and I don’t know the spiritual path that God has chosen for every single person on this planet. What’s worked for me in my exploration for the love of God may not work for someone else, and that’s the sole reason why I don’t live in the Christian Box anymore, because for me it feels far too claustrophobic.

The bottom line for me is that if God is in everything, then maybe Christians and everyone else for that matter who thinks their religion is the only way to God, might want to start thinking that God could be present in a whole heck of a lot more than just what they currently believe…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Have you ever received a truly disturbing text message that you wished you could unsee or never had received it in the first place? Unfortunately, I have and it came just recently from a casual acquaintance in my recovery from addiction circles when I awoke early one morning several Saturday’s ago. This is exactly how it read, word for word.

“I can’t betray my sense of right and wrong. Forgive me if you are offended. Being gay is a demonic perversion. It is an abomination to the Almighty. I beg you to ask Jesus to free you from this bondage before it is too late. Your friend in Jesus. I do care.”

At first, upon reading this, I was shocked. Shocked that anyone would send me such a thing, especially from a person I barely knew. But alas they did, yet I didn’t feel any resentment, anger or negativity towards them. Instead what I felt was sadness. Sadness that this is precisely why so many gays and lesbians in this world often avoid developing any type of relationship with God and Christ. The fact is, I’ve known far too many on my own spiritual journey thus far in life who have refused to ever connect with either because the first thing that comes to mind is a Christian who once told them something quite similar at some point along the way.

As far as I’m concerned, Christ never wanted fear, guilt or shame to be a motivating factor to seek Him or God. Rather, it was Christ’s unconditional love that always drew so many to His teachings and ultimately to God. But countless Christians and many people from other religions around the world continue to explicitly and quite outwardly denounce on behalf of Christ, God, or Whomever their Higher Power is, that being gay is a sin and one that will send an individual to some dark place such as hell. If that indeed was true, why would anyone ever want to follow what that person believed in and was selling?

If I never had been exposed to Christianity in my entire life and was still searching for something to follow, and if this text message was my first exposure to the teachings of Christ and God, I would have run as fast as I could away from it and not towards. I don’t respond well to fear, guilt, and shame, as that only makes me feel worthless and less then in life. Hence the reason why I believe this type of approach was never intended to be the one that Christ wanted any of His future followers to take with spreading the messages He taught.

That’s why I find it so sad the number of gays and lesbians who have had to experience this negative type of approach to Christianity or any other religion for that matter in their life.  Personally, I’ve been refused membership at churches, denied friendships, and received plenty of hateful messages throughout my life from Christians, Muslims, Jews, to name a few, over a part of me I was born with.

I may never have wanted to be born gay, but it’s something I’ve come to accept is the way God created me. Because if God created me in His unconditionally loving image, then I trust that God didn’t make a mistake when it came to my sexuality. Thus being told by anyone I’m a demonic perversion and an abomination because of my sexuality is going against that unconditional love of God and doing nothing more than spreading greater fear and darkness in this world.

So as I conclude today’s entry feeling great sorrow over this religious anti-gay text message I didn’t want or need, I’m going to end it with an uplifting reminder for all those in this world who are gay or lesbian, or bi-sexual, or transgender, or questioning, or anything else for that matter. Know that you aren’t and never have been a demonic perversion, an abomination, or a mistake. And know that the only thing God and Christ ever intended for you to receive from them is unconditional love.

Hopefully one day, the rest of the world will see this…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

“Sexual Immorality”. These two words are frequently written in a number of religious books in our world, but the one that has affected me the most has been the Bible. While the words themselves actually mean carnal wickedness or debauchery, the Bible continues to be interpreted by so many in saying it also refers to what two gay people do with each other in a bedroom, even when they’re in love with each other.

What I find so frustrating about this first and foremost is the number of people who become disillusioned with God over this. Take what happened to me some six years ago when I approached a church’s pastor in the Boston area and said I’d like to join because I truly felt the spirit moving in me there. Instead of saying it would be great to see me as a member of his church, he went into a long discourse about the “sexual immorality” I was living in and that I couldn’t join his congregation because of it. Recently I experienced something quite similar with a neighbor down the street and after leaving his presence, I felt completely unloved and unaccepted by God. Yet, I know that wasn’t God because I fully believe what God offers is nothing but unconditional love and that definitely wasn’t that, not with him and not with that pastor.

What most people don’t know, because they don’t do much biblical research, is that 2000 years ago, there was a lot of sexual fornication going on, such as orgies, domination, bestiality and the like. A good example is how many invading troops would come in to an area and force the women and men there to have sex with them. To me that’s truly what the Bible was referring to when it talked about “sexual immorality”. So why is it that it’s mostly being defined today as referring to homosexuality? And why would God bring so many homosexuals here on this planet if that’s truly what this was referring to?

I recently read a statistic that said it is estimated that 25 percent of the world’s population is gay, which means that close to two billion people identify themselves in this way. So are we saying then that God didn’t make these people in this way? Are we saying that they are just choosing that? If so, why would anyone choose to be this way with all the religious persecution being thrown their way still to this day?

If I had a choice, I wouldn’t be gay, that’s for sure. But from the age of 5, I remember staring at guys and being more interested in them, then a girl. So was I meant to deceive a woman in my life, pretending to be happy, thus making the relationship miserable? Or was I, along with a billion other people, meant to come here and just be celibate for life?

I can’t imagine that God would want either. I also can’t imagine that something happened to me before the age of five that made me gay. Ultimately though I must say that there were former moments of my life when my sexual behaviors were immoral such as when I was in orgy rooms, or sleeping with married men, or having different partners every weekend, or leading people on all for the sake of having sex.

But I’m not doing any of that now. I am with a man who I love with all my heart, mind, and soul, and am doing the best I can to unconditionally love them as I believe Christ would and I can’t fathom that God would deem that as being sexually immoral. By the way, speaking of Christ, not once in the Bible, anywhere, does Christ ever condemn a gay relationship or say two men being with each other is immoral.

So if loving my same-sex partner is somehow against what God intended for me and countless other gay couples, it simply doesn’t make any sense. Because if God is nothing but unconditional love, then I absolutely believe that God would be 100% happy with us settling into a relationship with one person whom we love dearly, even if it is of the same sex.

Regardless, I want to make mention of one other thing that relates to this subject before I finish todays entry. There were plenty of other laws thousands of years ago that were written in the bible, that no one ever seems to pay attention to when they come across them. For example, did you know that it says anyone who curses their mother or father was supposed to be killed. That very verse is listed right next to one of the most notorious passages used against gay people. And if one argues that incongruences like this only come in the Old Testament, then realize that in the New Testatment there’s only person who ever mentions anything about men being with men and that’s Paul.

Paul was always a deeply conflicted person, having once himself be the very person who condemned so many. None of us have any idea what tormented Paul from within. Did Paul have some guilt inside himself that related to homosexuality? Was Paul biased on this subject for some deeper reason that he never spoke about? Did any of this cause Paul to slant his words from more of a human perspective versus a God-based one? I don’t have the answers to any of these questions and sure, they are purely speculation. But the fact remains that none of us were alive 2000 years ago to know what Paul struggled with or what he really meant by what he said.

Thus I tend to believe the words “Sexual Immorality” have become the thing countless religious people grasp onto these days, solely to point the finger at what they feel is wrong in the world instead of looking at themselves and realizing that their judgment is what’s making the world the unloving place it is. And while it may be true that there are plenty of gay people out there who still engage in sexually immoral acts like I once did, there are many others who also desire nothing more than having a beautiful monogamous union with another soul like I do now, which is precisely why I can’t for the life of me, ever choose to believe that an unconditionally loving God would deem the latter as being sexually immoral as well…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson